Mine:
- Treat People The Way You’d Want to Be Treated. This encompasses several ideas. First, provide an environment where great people can excel. Where they can make mistakes, and also, where they are rewarded when they exceed expectations. Where people can quickly take on more ownership and responsibility if they want. And most importantly, where everyone is trusted. As part of this, pay people fairly, and if you can’t afford to pay a lot, at least pay as much as you can until then.
- Assume the Customer Knows Everything. Assume every discount, every deal, gets out. Every bit of downtime. Every security hole. Assume every customer knows everything. Then treat them the way you’d want to be treated if you knew everything. This dramatically increases the chances you retain your customers for life.
- You Can Only Thrive in a Diverse Team. I’ve only been very successful with very diverse teams. I have been somewhat successful with less diverse teams. But true diversity is key to excelling. Diversity in thought, in backgrounds, in nationalities, in gender, in culture, in everything. One axis of diversity alone isn’t enough. Diversity = resiliency. Diversity = less resistance to doing the unlikely and even the impossible. A more monolithic culture is less resilient, and more at risk of collapse. And a less pleasant place to work.
